If F1 did race at Long Beach....how much faster would they be than Indy Cars?

"SubiSanchez" (sanchez20) 05/17/2014 at 17:43 • Filed to: F1

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How fast would the current cars around the circuit compared to the current Indy Cars. Now this is assuming the cars were able to race on the current track layout. There is currently no direct comparison possible between Indy Cars and F1 cars but I believe we can calculate comparisons with the help of Champ Car stats.

Champ Car and F1 both raced at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve where the Champ Cars set a pole time of 1:20.0 in the last race they held there in 2006 whereas the F1 pole was a 1:14.9 by Alonso in a Renault that same year. Vettel set a pole of 1:13.8 in 2012(2013 qualifying was in wet conditions but fastest lap in the race was a 1:16.2 by Webber). Champ Cars were about 5-6 seconds slower per lap than the F1 cars but the track is 2.7 miles long compared to the 1.9 miles for Long Beach.

Now the new 2014 F1 Cars are significantly slower than the previous cars and have yet to race in Montreal but we do have comparisons from the most recent race in Spain where this year's pole time was a 1:25.2 compared to last year's 1:20.7 both set by Mercedes. Now again Catalunya is a lengthy track at 2.8 miles compared to Long Beach but there seems to be a similar gap in performance between the Champ Cars and new V6 F1 cars compared to the previous V8 F1 cars however I imagine the V6 F1 cars would have an advantage versus the heavier Champ Cars at Long Beach.

Based on this information and the fact that Champ Cars were generally 1 second faster around Long Beach, I would estimate the V6 era F1 cars to be about 2 seconds a lap faster around Long Beach and the V8 era cars about 4 seconds faster than the Indy cars. Now this is based completely on estimates and there is most likely a mathematical way to get a more accurate answer.

NoahthePorscheGuy > SubiSanchez 05/17/2014 at 17:58

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check Forza. DW12 vs Lotus E21